Moaning pathetically, I traipse through the living room, then flop onto the sofa just as my phone buzzes again. I reach inside my pocket and yank it out.
BEEBEE: Wait, just one more thing!
BEEBEE: In case you change your mind, a reminder that the Friendsgiving party I told you about is 4–8. There’ll be PUMPKIN PIE.
I roll my eyes as I swipe open the screen, then type my response. Yes, my weakness is pumpkin pie. But my hatred of Christopher, who will be there, is much stronger.
KITKAT: Not a chance in hell, BeeBee. But nice try.
* * *
—
Okay, so maybe my dependence on pumpkin pie is a smidge stronger than I care to admit.
Not so strong that I’ve decided to swing by the Friendsgiving party and risk seeing Christopher. Instead, there’s Nanette’s, a kick-ass bakery that I’m headed to, located a handful of blocks from the apartment. After some slight （read: thirty minutes of） social media scrolling, I discovered Nanette’s was having a flash sale this evening on pumpkin pies, buy one, get one half off.
I might have seven dollars and fifty-nine cents in my bank account, but I do have a credit card for extenuating circumstances that I am prepared to use. Thankfully, I don’t have to—I found an envelope on the kitchen counter with my name on it in Mom’s loopy cursive and five twenty-dollar bills inside it. Not even the prick to my pride, that my mother had both inferred and fussed over my rocky financial status, could stop me from snatching up two twenties and powering out the door.
Clearly, the universe intends me to have some pumpkin pie, after all.
Strolling down the sidewalk toward my destination, I bask in a bracing November wind that whisks dried autumn leaves along the concrete in tumbling, percussive swirls. My WALK IT OFF playlist blasts in my headphones and I feel a swell of joy. Fresh air. Two whole pumpkin pies, all to myself. No Friendsgiving required. No having to face—
Slam.
I collide with someone just as I round the corner of the block, my forehead knocking into what feels like a concrete ledge but is more likely the other person’s jaw, followed by their hard sternum jamming my sore shoulder. I hiss in pain as I stumble back.
A hand wraps around my other arm to steady me, and its warmth seeps through my jacket. I glance up, assessing if I’m under threat, but we’re caught in a shadowy patch of the sidewalk, late-evening darkness swallowing up our features.
Before I can panic, the strength of their grip eases as if they’ve sensed I stopped wobbling. As if whoever this is understands something about me that I don’t feel anyone ever has: that while I am fiercely independent, sometimes I want nothing more than a caring hand to catch me when I falter and just as freely let me go when I’m steady again.
The rumble of a voice dances across my skin, making every hair on my body stand on end. I yank off my headphones so I can hear them clearly.
“。 . . so sorry,” is what I catch.
Two words. That’s all it takes. Even if they’re two words I’ve never heard him say before, they’re all I need to recognize a voice that I know as well as my own.
Fiery anger blazes through me. Not because my shoulder’s throbbing, though it is. Not because my head feels like a bell that’s been rung, though it does. But because the person I’ve been trying to outrun is the very person I just ran into:
Christopher Petruchio.
“What the hell, Christopher?” I wrench my arm out of his grip, stepping back and stumbling into the reach of the streetlamp’s glow.
“Kate?” His eyes widen, wind whipping his dark hair, sending his scent my way, a scent I’d give anything to forget. Some criminally expensive cologne evoking the woodsy warmth of a fireside nap, the spiced smoke of just-blown-out candles. Resentment twists my stomach.
Every time I see him, it’s a fresh, terrible kick to the gut. All the details that have blurred, carved once again into vivid reality. The striking planes of his face—strong nose, chiseled jaw, sharp cheekbones, that mouth that’s genetically designed to make knees weak.
Not mine, of course. And strictly objectively speaking, merely from a professional standpoint. As a photographer, I spend a lot of time analyzing photogenic faces, and Christopher’s is unfortunately the epitome. Slightly asymmetrical, the roughness of his severe features smoothed by thick-lashed amber eyes, the lazy sensuality of that dark hair always falling into his face.
God, just looking at him makes my blood boil. “What are you doing here?” I snap.
He rubs a hand along the side of his face, eyes narrowed. “Thank you for asking, Katerina. My jaw is fine, despite your hard head—”